The technical domain of the invention is the domain of cellular communication networks and especially when these cellular communication networks are used to communicate from machine to machine, M2M, where the cellular communication network allows data exchange between machines.
In such a machine to machine framework, it is known to connect several machines between them by means of at least one communication network, in order to allow data exchange between the different machines. It is advantageous, in order to allow the mobility of a machine, or simply to remove a wired link, even for a static machine, to extend said communication network by including a wireless cellular communication network. An advantageous candidate, due to its large geographical widespread, is a cellular communication network.
A machine to machine application M2MA communicates and exchanges data with at least one measuring mobile terminal MMT the case occurring, through a cellular communication network. According to said paradigm, a measuring mobile terminal becomes a subscriber of said cellular communication network and must logically receive a public subscriber phone number MSISDN in order to be called and/or to receive a message through the cellular communication network.
In an illustrative application, a measuring mobile terminal MMT may comprise a measuring sensor. A typical measuring application may comprise a great number of measuring sensors. The allocation of a public subscriber phone number MSISDN to each measuring mobile terminal is not a viable solution in the long term, since the number of available public subscriber phone numbers MSISDN is limited.
Contrarily to a phone call which transmits a large data volume over a wireless medium for a long duration, continuously and singularly, a measuring mobile terminal MMT transmits a small data volume, for instance a single measure, for a very short duration, but periodically repeats the operation with a number of occurrences that can be considerable. The billing paradigms, based on call and/or duration used for phone calls are no longer appropriate to a machine to machine application.
Furthermore, many of the cellular network resources like the Home Location Register (HLR), the Short Messages Service Center (SMSC) or the Authentication Center (AUC) are delocalized over different places and do not belong to the same proprietor that therefore cannot optimize their inter-operation in view of a specific application like M2M devices actually are.